Across the Spectrum (24 page)

So that was settled, and Aymery had been thinking he might
manage a good night’s sleep. But when he came to his bed, he found Halima in
it—fully and decorously clothed, and bubbling over with questions about the
army and the camp and the court and the king.

And about his family, his sisters and his mother. “I should
like to meet them all,” she said. “May we do that? Soon?”

“That depends on the king’s pleasure,” Aymery said, before
he remembered; then he added, “And yours. I suppose I can get leave. If that’s
your will.”

“It might be,” she said. She propped herself on her elbow,
eyes dark in the lamplight. “I like your king. He’d make a fine stallion.”

Somewhat to Aymery’s surprise, his heart twisted. “I’m
superseded already, then?”

“No. He has too much of the world to carry.”

“And all I have is you.”

“And your mother. And your sisters.” Her brows knit in
reflection. “You know how to be what we need you to be. It’s bred in you. As if
you were of our blood, almost.”

“Old blood. Though not as old as yours.”

“Nothing is as old as ours.”

He drew a breath. He had not been going to say it, but after
all he had to. “Why did you let me go? Why did
you
go? Wouldn’t we all have been safer where we were?”

“Maybe,” she said. “And maybe it was time for us to walk in
the world again. We’re much less likely to be troubled by thieves and sorcerers
if we seem to belong to a king—and this king will live to a great age. Eldest
Grandmother saw it, and she always sees true.”

That was a great good thing. But there was still that other
question. “What I bargained for—if you’re here, and Tencendur is here, then
what do you need me for?”

“
I
need you,” she
said, “and you have much to learn, some of which my sire can teach. You can be
your king’s for as long as it suits us; but you’re ours always. That, we’ll
bind you to.”

Aymery let out a long sigh. “So I’m a slave of sorts. A
vassal. A servant.”

“You did choose it,” she reminded him.

“I did,” he said. “I’m not sorry. Amazed, somewhat. Baffled.
A little scared.”

“You should be,” said Halima. But she smiled.

He smiled back. He caught himself wondering—did he dare?
Would she—?

She answered before he could say a word: she caught his face
in her hands and pulled him to her, and kissed him until the whole world went
away.

Then he knew he had chosen rightly. And so, he thought,
looking into her eyes that were the same whether she walked as woman or mare,
did she.

I’m an alumna of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.
At this fine institution the frat boys used to use gazorchers to wage
water-balloon combats across the quad. The minute I learned of this I knew that
a story could be written. To put a feminist twist on weapons made out of
women’s undergarments, what could be better?

∞ ∞ ∞

The problem with my daughter is that she has too much
energy. Way too much energy! Rollerblading, karate, managing the metal club,
marching in pro-choice demonstrations—and today she still found time to come
over and harass me.

“This house is too much for you, Pop,” Cath said. As she
moved down the sofa, plumping each pillow in turn, her chains jingled and
swayed. “You ought to move to a condo.”

“Your mother loved this house,” I protested.

The dangling silver skulls in her ears clanked as she
whirled to glare at me. “Mom passed away in 1989, Pops! And look at all this
mess.” She pulled three Iron City beer cans, a used plate, and a cloudy glass
from under the end table. “While you’re away I’m definitely going to
spring-clean.”

“Don’t bother, Cath—you’re so busy all the time.” Actually I
didn’t want her messing with my stuff. “I’ll have someone come in and clean
when I get back from the reunion.”

“Men are another
species
,” Cath grumbled. She whizzed
over to the bookcase and began straightening books. “Visiting battlefields?
Looking up the people you tried to
kill?”

“We were all fighting the Axis together—the Greeks
understood that.” It was scary, like watching a tornado. I sat tight, not
daring to recline my chair back. There was more crockery, I knew, under the
Barcalounger.

Suddenly she hauled a book off the bottom shelf. Dust rose
in clouds, showing white on her black leather jacket. “Now you could easily
toss these—”

“No!” I yelped. “Cath, those are mine!”

“Pop, you don’t even read them,” she said patiently, the way
you’d talk to a baby. “Look at the dust.” She let the volume fall open on her
mini-skirted lap. “This one’s nothing but a scrap book. ‘The Gazorcher Saves
Tot from Ledge.’ It’s so juvenile, to adore superheroes these days.”

“That does it.” Creaking, I stood up. My own daughter the
punkette, calling me juvenile! I felt in my pants pocket for the ring. “Watch
this, Cath.”

Too late I remembered why my costume had goggles. The air
swooshed past, buffeting my face and bringing the water to my eyes. Stopping
was always the devil, too. I missed the TV by a whisker and skidded painfully
into the paneling.

“Jesus! Pop, what the hell?”

I took a hanky from my sweater sleeve and blotted my eyes.
“I wish you wouldn’t swear, Cath. Indulge an old superhero, okay?”

“
You?
Pop, you were the
Gazorcher?”

“Yep, that’s me.” I hobbled back to the Barcalounger and sat
down to nurse my bruises. “The master of line-of-sight teleportation himself.
Pittsburgh’s own superhero.”

“Ohmigod!” If she laughed, I promised myself I’d rewrite my
will. But she just sat on the linoleum by the bookcase, flabbergasted into
immobility. “Pop, how is it done?”

I showed her the ring: an old, old bronze signet, the design
almost worn away. “I got it in Heraklion.”

She leaned to look, her unpleasant jewelry jingling. “A guy
in a toga appeared in a puff of smoke, and told you to fight the Nazis with
it,” she guessed.

“No, I think that was Captain America. I bought this in a
junk shop. Some Cretan must have dug it up. The past few years I’ve read up on
it. This is Minoan work.”

Cath stared around at the bookcases which lined the rec
room. “All your books about ancient Greece.”

I nodded. “This is the lost ring of King Minos, Cath. He
ruled a naval empire back then. Bet gazorching was really helpful to him.”

“And—wait a minute, Pop! And you’re taking it back to Greece
next week?”

“Well, you know, Cath, it might be a really significant
artifact. The archaeologists would like to see it, I bet. I thought, when we do
the tour of the air base outside Heraklion, I’d pretend I just found it, in the
grass or something. It’s not like I had a sidekick, to hand it down to—”

I could tell from Cath’s sudden blowtorch glare that I’d
said something sexist again. “What about me?” she demanded. “Why can’t a woman
be the Gazorcher?”

“Uh, there are reasons, Cath.” I could feel myself going
pink with embarrassment. “You know what a gazorcher is?”

“It’s a gigantic slingshot arrangement, right?”

“Fraternity guys at Carnegie-Mellon use them to lob water balloons.
In my day the Pi Lambs made ’em out of bicycle inner tubes. But in the
beginning, when the frat first invented them, we used, uh, women’s
undergarments.”

Cath looked at me as if I were stuck to the bottom of her
shoe. “You used bras. Great. I always knew frat men were adolescent swine, and
this proves it.”

“You could use another name,” I suggested. “How about the
Feminist Avenger? Nail rapists. Embarrass dirty old men. Testify at Supreme
Court confirmation hearings.”

That made her laugh. “Are you serious, Pop? Would you let me
inherit the superhero job?”

I looked at her, so competent, so full of bouncy energy, and
had to say, “You’ve already inherited everything you need, Cath.” Besides, she
wouldn’t need a cape or anything. The spiked leather bustiers and the green
streak in her hair were terrifying enough. Batman had nothing on her. I put the
ring into her hand.

She closed her fingers slowly around it. “This is amazing. I
can’t believe it. My father, the costumed crime fighter. Would you, you know, teach
me how to use it?”

“You bet!” The last time Cath wanted me to teach her
anything, it was how to ride a two-wheel bike. All of a sudden I felt great.
There’s life in the old boy yet!

Suddenly she seemed to have second thoughts. “One more
question, Pop. Why’d you quit? How come the Gazorcher retired?”

That’s Cath all over, examining the drawbacks before
committing herself—exactly what a teleporter should be! “Look it up in the
scrap books,” I said. “The Gazorcher’s last case was in October 1977. And you
were born—”

“November second. Oh Pop, you’re kidding! It was
my
fault?”

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” I corrected her. “Your mother
was ill, in the hospital for six weeks. What was I going to do—leave you alone,
a newborn baby? It was easier to just hang up the goggles.”

“Child care pressures did you in.” For the first time today
Cath stared at me with not astonishment but respect. “I’m gonna tell my women’s
action group. They’ll award you an Honorary Ovary. It’s a pin—you can wear it
on your lapel.”

“Uh, thanks. Oh, the goggles! Now those are essential.
You’ll see what I mean. Let me look upstairs and see if I still have mine.”
Come to think of it, the Gazorcher’s goggles were black leather too. Obviously
it was meant to be.

The editor is why I love this story. She pushed, and pushed,
and pushed until I stretched way beyond what I thought enough to come up with a
story that not only means a lot to me but is one of the best things I ever
wrote. I started it for the
Breaking Waves
anthology but just did not have time to finish and polish it. Now I’m glad I
waited.

∞ ∞ ∞

My life has evolved in ways I never could imagine. Now I
must live the life of a fugitive . . . This is the first day of
my new life. But wait, it did not begin today. It began . . . it
began half a lifetime ago. Half of my lifetime anyway.

∞

“Hope Sally Henderson, must you walk like an elephant?”
Mama didn’t turn away from her dishwashing or watching the morning news on her
laptop beside her on the kitchen counter.

I paused one foot halfway into the kitchen. I was in a hurry
on my way to grabbing breakfast and not paying attention to manners or walking
“ladylike.” My birthday breakfast and maybe . . . just maybe I’d
have a surprise awaiting me.

Only reason Mom would notice I walked heavily was if she had
a cake in the oven.

I peeked to make sure the big cake mixing bowl was among the
dirty dishes. At twelve, while too sophisticated to demand a birthday cake, I
still wanted one. The special one, three layers of white cake with boiled icing
topped with coconut and nests of jelly beans. That was my cake.

More cake than just she and I could eat. I looked for
evidence that Daddy had come home. The only present I really wanted.

His ship captain’s hat wasn’t hanging on the rack in the mud
room off the kitchen. My stomach plummeted at yet another birthday spent
without him. Three years in a row now.

“Are you remembering today, Daddy?” I asked the air, hoping
he’d hear my thoughts on his oil skimmer ship in the middle of the Chesapeake
Bay. “Please, Daddy, have a weekend off soon.”

At least he was in the Chesapeake, close enough to come home
to Virginia Beach on his days off. If he ever got another one. That damned oil
spill kept him and every other skimmer crew busy every damn day, day in, day
out. They only made port to take on supplies or send an injured crewman to
hospital.

“Sorry, Mom,” I grumbled to the only parent in residence. If
I couldn’t have Dad, at least I got my cake.

I let my netbook drop onto the kitchen table, while I fished
for my flash drive in my backpack. The tiny thing always slipped out of its
pocket and nestled in the bottom, beneath all my other junk.

Mom rounded on me with a glare. “You will never be a lady,
clunking and thunking about.” She snapped a lot when Dad was gone. Not that she
was home much either.

I wondered if the news held information that would send her
off on another job analyzing fish and water and seabed samples for UNOMA, the
UN Oceans Monitoring Agency. I thought her PhD in marine biology was wasted
collecting samples all over the world and then writing reports in her office.
She could be doing so much more to aid the containment since the Big Spill. She
should be working on a way to stop the new pollution disasters that cropped up
every day.

I shrugged her off. Again. She never listened to me anyway.
“What’s for breakfast? I’ve got to turn in my biology paper first period, so I
can’t be late.” I pulled up the paper on the netbook and did a final spell
check, then saved it to the biology flash drive to turn in. The computer
groaned and growled as it slowly transferred the data along with a multitude of
graphs and photos. The drive was overloaded to begin with. Only ten gigs.
Sheesh, I needed a terabyte or four at least for all my research and really
cool stuff coming out of the Center for Disease Control. The CDC often had more
information on the ramifications of the Big Spill than anyone else.

“Hot water’s in the microwave, hit start.” Mama gestured to
a packet of instant oatmeal on the table. She dried her hands and turned her
attention back to the morning news on her laptop.

Pictures flipped by. Oil spills, drilling, dumping,
eco-terrorists, fish kills. More about the Big Spill. That story had been top
of the screen for years. Cap the well, it springs a leak a mile away. Cement
that, and something else blows, or a grounded tug scrapes off the cap on an
abandoned well. Or terrorists blew up a tanker.
And
we faced illegal toxic waste dumps into the Mariana Trench. The
intense pressure of the depths crushed the containers and . . .
well, you get the picture. I think the entire world was tired of hearing about
it.